


Cold Water

by midnightdiddle (gooseberry)



Category: Tales of the Abyss
Genre: Friendship/Love, Gen, Memory Loss, Rebirth, Recovery, Resurrection, Sharing a Body
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-06-23
Updated: 2008-06-23
Packaged: 2019-02-01 04:51:33
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,684
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12697740
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gooseberry/pseuds/midnightdiddle
Summary: Their body feels crowded, like a too-small room with too many people.  When Asch tries to move, their body feels heavy, like something (or someone, and Luke feels like snow in the back of his mind) is holding him down.  Asch holds their hand out in front of them, clenches it into a fist.  After a moment, the hand slowly opens, turning palm up, and Asch says, "This isn't going to work."He feels Luke, snow down the back of their neck, a moment before their mouth opens, and Luke says, "We can make it work."--The difficulty in being reborn is the newness.  That, and sharing a body (and mind) with another person.Prompt: June 23 - Tales of the Abyss, Asch/Luke: postgame body-sharing - At first he'd thought it was Luke's issues that made Luke turn down Tear and only his own discomfort at having an internal observer that killed the mood with Natalia.





	Cold Water

The difficulty in being reborn is the newness. Everything that seemed common and dull becomes disgustingly new and fresh, almost garish in the explosion of sights and smells. Lurid, and dizzying. The first thing they feel on their skin, tender like it's new, is wind. Before, it'd just been darkness and silence and pain, for being reborn is a painful thing. But then there's wind, slow and lazy and hot, and Asch would, if he could trust anything, swear it's a summer wind.  
  
And maybe it is a summer wind. Maybe it's summer now, because Asch doesn't know how long it takes to build a person, and he knows that Luke doesn't know, either. So maybe it's been days, or weeks, or months or years or centuries, of pulling themselves back together out of scattered shadow and light and fonons. And maybe, after piecing together one person out of what had been two, it's a summer day, and the wind is a summer wind.  
  
It's still Hod, or what's left of Hod. The stones are sun-bleached, warm beneath their hands, and they lie on the stones for a long time, cold and tired and sore. But Luke is always impatient, and Asch hates the way Luke tries to fidget, and so they're moving before the sun has started down from its zenith. The ocean is crashing beneath what remains of Hod, and when they lean over an edge, because Asch has always loved the ocean, and because Luke has always loved to lean from high places and think, _What if he was to fall_ \-- When they lean over the edge, the ocean spray hits them, salt water in the summer wind, and on their cheeks. They touch their cheeks, the grit of the salt rough against their skin, and when they taste it, taste _salt_ , so simple a thing, Luke laughs, and the feeling is strong.  
  
x  
  
Their body feels crowded, like a too-small room with too many people. When Asch tries to move, their body feels heavy, like something (or someone, and Luke feels like snow in the back of his mind) is holding him down. Asch holds their hand out in front of them, clenches it into a fist. After a moment, the hand slowly opens, turning palm up, and Asch says, "This isn't going to work."  
  
He feels Luke, snow down the back of their neck, a moment before their mouth opens, and Luke says, "We can make it work."  
  
It's difficult, and feels like what Asch thinks sharing a room would be like, if a room was actually your body, and most of your mind. As it is, it feels crowded and confusing, and like Asch is losing bits of himself, whatever bits that had been pulled back together within Hod. At times, when Luke feels like melting snow down the neck, Asch can't feel himself, can't even remember what he feels or thinks, except the laughter that trickles down, too much Luke and not much else.  
  
"You're always angry," Luke says, when they're trying to figure out how, exactly, to split up their lives (life, Asch realizes with a sickening lurch) equally enough to keep Luke from whining and Asch from stepping off the nearest ledge.  
  
"I'm not angry," Asch says sharply, and the snow-trickle is back, and their body is shaking with Luke's laughter. Asch yanks control back to himself, body going still and laughter abruptly dying on the air. "Stupid Replica--" And he kicks at the stones of Hod roughly, then pulls back, pushing the control back to Luke. He sinks further back, the pain of their stubbed foot a distant throb.  
  
"Bastard," Luke says, but the words are distant, just like the pain, and it's easy for Asch to lose himself in the quietness beneath the melting-snow feelings of Luke's conscious.  
  
x  
  
Luke is missing someone, but he can't remember who it is. He feels like cold water, numbing and uncomfortable, and Asch doesn't know how much internal and external moping he can take. He feels equally guilty, though, because he can see blonde hair and pale eyes, but he can't see her smile, and he can't remember her name. And here, on Hod, their guilt hangs heavy, and the salt-water in the wind is turning bitter on their tongue.  
  
He can feel it the moment Luke decides they should leave. It's a warm feeling against his stomach, like humiliation and guilt, balled into one, and when their mouth opens, Luke says, "I can't remember her name."  
  
They leave when the sun is low to the horizon, catching their skin in red light. Asch doesn't know if he really wants to leave Hod, because Hod is about all they really know, and the rocks are warm beneath their skin. But Luke's stubborn, and Asch is tired, and he's always loved the ocean, and Luke has always loved to fall. And the water, when they hit it, is like razors against their skin, but it buoys them up, carries them high, like Lorelei had, cradling them in arms of sea-foam and salt, and fonons stirring crazy.  
  
When they reach land, it's a craggy beach, more cliff than not, and they cling to it with their tired arms, and wait until their fingers are a little less numb. Asch scales the cliff, because he's better at climbing than Luke, and Luke murmurs in the back of their head, soft little half-spoken encouragements and curses that aren’t as distracting as they should be.

The meadow, when they reach it, is wide, bathed in moonlight, and the grass bends past their knees. They drag their hands over the tops of the grass, and Luke’s laugh sounds like Asch’s. Asch catches a handful of grass, and Luke tips back their head, blinding their eyes with the moon and the stars and the spinning darkness overhead. Asch’s laughter dies first, and Luke’s breath breaks in a catch, and there is someone, the someone at the corner of Luke’s memory, singing.

It’s a line of people, men and women, and the people look at them, at the line of their shoulders, the fall of their hair.

“Why are you here?” a woman asks, and the melting-snow feeling of Luke slides down their back, makes Asch slide their feet further apart, trying to steady themselves.

“You can see Hod from here,” Luke says, and Asch lifts their head against the wind.

When they’re embraced, the feeling of skin against skin feels like fire to Asch, and he draws back, lets Luke stay in the front. Luke is cold water, a happy confusion in their mind, and Asch listens to him laugh, breathless as the world embraces them.

x

Her name is Natalia, blonde-haired and pale-eyed. She rests her hands on theirs, and tells them many things. She tells them their mother’s name, their father’s, their age and birthday. She tells them about Malkuth and Kimlasca-Lanvaldear, and about Hod.

They know about Hod. They know the color of the rocks, the taste of the air, the ruined rooms they lied in. They know how Hod feels, against the skin and beneath it, the pain-pleasure-pain of Hod’s fonons slipping through their blood. They know little else, neither Natalia nor Tear, nor even their mother and father, but they, together, know Hod.

Tear comes behind Natalia at times, and when she bends next to them, sitting in the sun, her hair smells like sea-salt, or tears.

Tears they learn of, here in Kimlasca, in Baticul. Their mother cries in the hallways, with her face turned away from them. When she looks at them, her smile looks drowned, and Luke is wet-snow guilt down their back.

She calls them “Luke” and “Asch,” and when her smile is the most drowned, she calls them “sons”. Their father holds her then, his hands upon her shoulders, and they call their parents (forgotten, because the difficulty in being reborn is the newness, and forgetting you loved before you became two people burned into one) “Mother” and “Father,” the smell of sea-salt tears in the air, like the smell of Tear’s fall of hair.

x

“She’s in love with you.” It feels awkward to use their mouth, to speak aloud, but Luke likes to hear sound, likes to know that there’s someone with him. And sometimes, it’s easier, because it reminds Asch that Asch is real, that he can reach out and touch—

“Who?” Luke asks, and Asch wonders how someone can be so stupid.

“Tear,” he says sharply, not sure if his voice is aloud.

“Oh.” Luke blinks their eyes, turns their face towards the window, and says, “You’re angry.”

“I’m _not_ ,” Asch begins to say, but then Luke’s talking again, and Asch retreats back, feels their mouth move, listens to Luke’s voice.

“When you’re angry, I can feel you. It’s like you’re not all there, but when you’re angry, I can feel wind down my back.” Luke’s voice sounds embarrassed, but he’s pressing onwards, a flush over their face. “It’s nice, to know you’re still there. That I haven’t—”

Asch grabs control, shuts their mouth with a snap, and their body is still for a long minute as they fight over control, their mouth twisting as Luke tries to keep talking, and their eyes tightly shut as Asch fights to keep it, because he doesn’t want to hear the words. Finally, when Luke’s given up, and Asch is feeling bruised all over, Asch says, tiredly, through their mouth, “You’re so stupid.”

x

It’s in the midst of the fall that Tear kisses them. There are autumn leaves scattered on the ground, crunching beneath their feet, and Luke is explaining something to Tear, his voice getting higher with his excitement. Asch is watching from their eyes, and he catches Tear’s awkward step forward, wonders what she’s doing, and when Luke is wondering what Asch is wondering, Tear kisses them.

At first, it feels like nothing, because Asch is in the back, just watching as Tear’s face gets incredibly close. Then Asch realizes that Luke’s not there in the front, that Luke’s slid away without warning, without a slip of snow down their back, and then Asch can feel the kiss, awkward and stiff, but warm, too. He moves, clumsy, and puts his hands on Tear’s shoulders, pushes her away, and says, when she looks at him, “Sorry.”

His voice is high and tight, because he’s embarrassed and angry as hell that Luke just skipped off to his moping corner during a _kiss_ , and from the look on Tear’s face, his voice sounds like Luke’s.

“Oh,” Tear says, looking stunned. Then she just looks as embarrassed as Asch feels, and maybe a little angry, too, and the leaves crumble beneath her feet when she leaves the yard, flushed face covered with her sea-salt hair.

Asch watches her leave and waits, impatiently, for Luke to come back. After a few minutes, when the body still feels too empty (and Asch has to wonder if this is what it feels like for Luke, when Asch is hiding in the back, still too tired and broken to share what pieces of himself he still has with Luke), he says, aloud, “Luke.”

There’s barely anything there, a shadow of pinpricks on the back of his neck, and he says, louder, “ _Luke_.”

Luke feels like guilt and confusion, slick ice over cold water, and Asch waits until Luke says, “I didn’t think she would…”

“You didn’t want her to?”

“No-- No, it’s just-- You.”

Asch snorts at that, mutters something about Luke being an idiot, because he is, but Luke’s still shaky, still just a numbing cold on the back of their neck, so Asch walks them back to the house. Luke’s comments in the back of their head are soft, half-way there and empty, but they sound questioning, like Luke’s trying to ask Asch a question. Asch goes quiet, listening to the broken, fragmenting thoughts, then says, “I don’t remember her. I like her, but I don’t remember her.”

Luke’s thoughts get more fragmented, more confusing, and Asch says, annoyed, “You’re not making sense.”

Then it’s a clear question, and Asch swallows, feels their throat stick.

“Because I don’t want her to cry.”

x

When they dream, they dream together. Asch doesn’t remember his dreams from before, but he thinks they would’ve been confusing enough. Now, though, dreaming with Luke, nothing makes sense. Luke’s parts of the dream (Asch thinks they’re Luke’s, because they always make him think of snow, slipping down the collar of his shirt, melting against his skin) are all color and sound and feelings. Asch’s parts (he thinks they’re his parts, because when there’s more of these, Luke’s quieter in the mornings, little fragments that taste like pity slipping to Asch during the day) are emptier, darker and stranger, and more like a nightmare. When they dream together, bits and pieces coming together, it’s jagged around the edges, something never quite whole, just like them.

They sleep in late one morning, Luke restless in their mind, rolling over in their bed, and dragging Asch along. Asch feels just as restless, though, shaky and spooked, and when they finally drag themselves out of the dream, and out of bed, the sun’s glinting brightly on the bits of glass Asch and Luke collected when they were young.

“Asch,” Luke says when they’re trying to get dressed, Luke too clumsy with their fingers. Asch bats Luke away, moves their fingers himself. He’s still shaky, but he gets the buttons done before Luke can try to take it back. He smoothes their clothes down, then slips back, lets Luke back to the front.

“Asch,” Luke says again, so stubborn, and Asch thinks about a desert, an empty wasteland, focuses on the thought of a grain of sand so he won’t have to pay attention to each of Luke’s thoughts. Luke must catch an edge of Asch’s thoughts, the feel of gritty sand against their skin, because he goes quiet, retreating to his own little fragment thoughts.

Breakfast is already over, but there’s still food on the table, and Asch looks at it through their eyes, watches Luke move their hands to pick at pieces, his favorites of this, and that. When Luke’s reaching for a fork, Asch retreats back again, because it’s not exactly exciting to watch Luke stab food with their fork. Asch starts to think about the sand again, and then starts thinking about birds, then the way the knights’ armor always echoes in the hallways. He’s thinking about the weather, and about how he’d like to go out in the sun after this, maybe outside Baticul, when he realizes that Luke’s not moving.

He goes quiet, tries to listen for Luke’s fragment, melting-snow thoughts, but Luke’s quiet, too, a sliver of cold that’s barely sliding down their back. Asch wonders what’s wrong, wonders why Luke’s not stabbing at the food. When he looks at the plate, there’re fruit and eggs, bread with butter. Asch watches as their hand moves, Luke pushing a strawberry to the right side of the plate, then push a piece of melon next to it.

“You’re being stupid,” Asch mutters, and Luke’s half-melted snow, laughing in the back of their mind. Luke keeps pushing the food to the right side of the place, and Asch watches the fork scrape, not content, but not angry, either. When Luke reaches their hands for the vegetables, fingers reaching for the carrots, Asch thinks thoughts of poison at him, sends Luke into laughing again, melting-ice-snow-water.

“You won’t leave, will you?” Luke asks when the plate’s empty. He’s dragging the fork across the bottom of the plate, and the scraping sound is shrill, hurts their ears. Asch thinks of quiet, thinks of empty rooms with open windows, wide fields with tall grass.

“You won’t, will you?” Luke asks again, and Asch thinks winter at him, wind whipping snow from frozen tree branches. Luke’s thoughts run fast past Asch’s, hopeful then laughing, and Asch grumbles “You’re being stupid”, snow in the back of his mind.


End file.
